You’ve probably already heard about the renowned EGR valve, the anti-pollution valve. It is not generally appreciated by car owners because it tends to create more concerns than anything else… In reality, based on the use you are going to make of your car, it can become blocked and cause you a lot of concerns. If this is the situation, you are probably wondering how to clean the EGR valve of your Mercury Mariner ? Don’t be anxious, we’ve prepared this article to help you with this operation. To do this, we will initially look at the purpose of the EGR valve, then what are the failures that the EGR valve of your Mercury Mariner can reason and at last the section that will probably interest you the most, how to clean the EGR valve Mercury Mariner?

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How to Clean your Mercury Mariner EGR Valve: Role and Operation

Role of the EGR valve

The EGR valve of your car has been integrated to diesel engines mainly to reduce pollution emitted by vehicles and to fulfill EURO specifications on Mercury Mariner . It will therefore control the quality of exhaust gas output and eliminate toxic particles, mainly Nitrogen Oxide.

Operation of the EGR valve

Before we learn how to clean the EGR valve on your Mercury Mariner , we will examine how it functions. As described before, its mission is to clean the exhaust fumes, so it will be installed at the engine outlet, thanks to a valve, it will be able to return the unburned exhaust gases to the engine for a second burn which will eliminate all unburned toxic particles. It will perform mainly at low speed because at high speed the combustion is sufficient to burn all these gases.

How to clean your Mercury Mariner EGR valve: Identifying faults

The EGR valve, although very effective to limit the pollution emissions of your Mercury Mariner , will sadly tend to clog up because of soot/gas deposits that will build up in its system, which will inevitably risk blocking the functions of the valve, until totally blocking the engine unit, here are the symptoms that a faulty EGR valve on your Mercury Mariner can provoke:

  • Motor light on
  • Performance loss
  • Technical inspection rejected
  • Black gases
  • Car that grazes at low speed
  • Low RPM settings

How to clean your Mercury Mariner EGR valve: In practice

And now we’ll begin the section you are most intrigued by, how to clean the EGR valve of your car. Here are the two ways that you can use.

Do it on your own

How to clean your Mercury Mariner EGR valve system: Without taking it apart

Nevertheless this approach is less efficient, it is however possible to consider a “rough” cleaning of your EGR valve, actually, you will only need to use fuel additives, similar to the products used to clean the injection. These specific products must be injected into the running engine, at the right operating temperature, diluted in about 20 litres of fuel and run the engine for 3 or 4 minutes in high rev to clean the EGR valve of your Mercury Mariner.

How to clean your car EGR valve: With disassembly

Here is the strongest approach, which will require sufficient access to the EGR valve to perform the process on your own. If so, the procedure is fairly straightforward. You will need to disconnect the electromagnet from the EGR valve, remove the few screws that hold it in place, and remove it. Once these guidelines are accomplished, now comes the time for cleaning. To get this done, you will need to use a product such as solvent, petrol, oven cleaning product, which you will leave to act for ten minutes, then scrape off the rest using a scraper, finish cleaning with wire brush. If you want to go further, you can even clean the two conduits on which it is connected which may be scorched, for this, use a scraper and a vacuum cleaner to avoid dropping deposits in the conduits. You will only have to reassemble it and you will have finished cleaning the EGR valve of your Mercury Mariner.

Have it done by a professional

If, your EGR valve is not reachable because of the series or the engine of your car and if removing it would cause too many troubles (removing too many auto parts that hinder access for example), how to clean the EGR valve of your Mercury Mariner? In cases like this, it would be better rather than launching yourself into an overly complex operation, you turn to an auto mechanic. He will be able to accomplish the job more cleanly and will be able, if necessary, to change the valve if it is dead. The cost of cleaning based on the difficulty of access is between 70 and 300 €.

Remove the EGR valve of your Mercury Mariner

At last, a number of people make a more radical decision to limit the risk of a failed valve. Instead of cleaning the EGR valve of their Mercury Mariner, they simply prefer to block it in the closed position. This treatment will have the consequence of greatly increasing the pollution emitted by the car, of no longer complying with pollution standards, of having an engine warning light all day on and finally risk fouling the engine. We highly recommend against making this choice. If you have other questions or want to learn more about your car, don’t think twice to check out our dedicated page.

If you want more guides on the Mercury Mariner, go to our Mercury Mariner category.